Hunt’s budget has almost no impact on the general election betting
Coming as it did less than two months after the last Tory budget it was no surprise that the reaction of the betting markets was far less than the “budget” of Kwarteng for the then Truss government in September. That hugely controversial event led to a massive collapse in Tory polling and a few weeks later the exit of Truss herself. Although we have probably seen the end of LAB leads of 30%+ the Tories are still in a dire…
Trump’s going to struggle if he thinks he can take on Murdoch
The above is the front page of yesterday’s New York Post and follows the Trump move when he announced that he was going to run for the Republican party nomination for 2024 I love the way the strapline on the New York Post appears just at the bottom of the page without even naming him and then instructs us to go to page 26! What has been interesting in the past couple of days is how a number of major…
YouGov Brexit tracker: “Wrong to leave” has biggest lead yet
At some stage this’ll be a problem for Starmer and Sunak One thing that is very clear and that is neither of the main party leaders is going to do anything about this apart from making total token claims about seeking to improve the relationship with Brussels. The problem in each case is their base and they cannot do anything that can be perceived as undermining the outcome of the referendum. Meanwhile the British economy will continue to decline in…
Trump back up to a 36% betting chance for the GOP 2024 nomination
Those he’s backed lost but he’s going for WH2024 So Trump has made his announcement about his plan to run in 2024 and he’s already filed his papers so he is an official nominee. That of itself resolves one betting market on whether he would be a runner. The submission of the papers makes it official. His decision comes after a dreadful set of midterms when just about everybody he gave his backing to ended up a loser. In the…
The question that won’t go away for Sunak
The above interview between Rishi Sunak and Beth Rigby of Sky News raises a question that the prime minister needs to think more carefully about and develop a better response. This is going to be a key attack point for opposition parties at the next general election against the Tories. The PM comes out of this encounter looking evasive and it was similar with other interviews that he has had. The question the Tories will be repeatedly asked is very…
A LAB majority back as general election favourite
We have been focused so much recently on the American elections that we have ignored the betting on what is going to happen at the next UK General Election. The chart above shows how the outcome has fluctuated between a hung Parliament or a LAB majority and the latter has now just edged into the lead as a 43% chance. In spite of all the current polling I am still sceptical about Labour’s chances of making the 124 gains that…
The US pollster who helped make Cameron on the Midterms
Frank Luntz on how the polling got things wrong Luntz first came to notice in the UK, and on PB, with his focus groups on the 2005 Tory leadership contest that was featured on Newsnight. My view at the time was that it was Luntz who helped ensure that Cameron was able to beat David Davis who was the favourite. The above is his analysis on last Tuesday’s elections. Mike Smithson